


Ukko’s Löyly

by wavewright62



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Family, Family Fluff, Gen, Remnants of the pre-Rash culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 11:56:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12983562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavewright62/pseuds/wavewright62
Summary: Ensi Hotakainen trades for some very unusual items from the travelling trader, and shares them with her twin sons.





	Ukko’s Löyly

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the summer when Juha & Jukka Hotakainen are 7 years old (Year what? 45-50ish?).
> 
> This serves for the letter U in the SSSS Alphabet Challenge.

Juha hung back behind his mother as she spoke with the trader. He and his twin Jukka weren’t usually allowed, either alone or with each other, on the high wharf where the trading boats docked. He looked carefully in the water of the lake, fidgeting nervously. He could faintly _sense_ some spirit nearby but not see it. His mother didn’t appear bothered, so he decided it couldn’t be anything too bad.

Juha put down his basket to wave his hands in front of his face, to ward off the persistent gnats. Then he noticed fish rising eagerly to feed on a mayfly hatch in progress in the reeds alongside the wharf, and he relaxed somewhat. Among the topics taught to the youngest children in Saimaa, with and without magical ability, were the ways to recognise the hiding places of maahinen, and other signs of troll and beast nests. For instance, fish would often seek out deeper and more hidden waters in the presence of aquatic beasts, and the fact that they were on the surface was a good sign that there were none of the Rash-touched in the waters nearby. He pointed it out to Jukka, but the latter was already looking at it, scratching idly at itchy bites on his arm. Jukka was always more fascinated than Juha was in bugs and creepy things, but Juha was the better fisherman.

The twins’ mother strode past them with her long legs, still talking with the trader about some pelts she had for him. She called back, “Hoo! Boy! Come.” She had always called them thus, as though they were one person and not two. Both boys followed in her wake up the slope to their cottage, scrambling as fast as their seven-year-old legs would take them.

The trader was one of Juha’s favourite people, even though he couldn’t remember the man’s name properly. He was older than dirt, older even than his mother, maybe even as old as Auntie Tuuli. Like Auntie Tuuli, the trader could remember the times before the Rash, and sometimes would enthrall the boys with tales of how things used to be. Their mother would fidget and frown and try to steer the topic back to their boring old business, usually by sending the twins out to do some chore.

As though reading his thoughts (she sometimes claimed the ability to do exactly that), his mother flicked back her long blonde ponytail and reminded Juha that he and Jukka were supposed to be finding mushrooms for her. She asked him where his basket was, and he looked around his feet as though expecting the basket to manifest there. Jukka helpfully piped in that Juha had left it on the wharf, and Juha shot him a glare of reproach for his betrayal before running down.

As Juha ran back to the cottage, Jukka was crouched under the window, holding his finger to his lips to warn Juha to be quiet. There was music coming from their cottage, but a sound unlike Juha had ever heard before, and as he came closer he could hear singing as well. Juha pushed in next to Jukka to peek inside the front room, to see what was making the sound.

It looked like the trader had a very odd curvy kantele that he was holding up to his chest instead of on his lap, and it made a small but pleasant sound as he brushed his hand over the front of the instrument again and again. Juha couldn’t make out the words he was singing, it sounded like a different language. His mother was entranced as the man played. The man finished his song and began speaking to their mother again, and both boys quickly ducked under the window to avoid detection, and crept away silently as their mother had taught them.

When they returned with the mushrooms, the trader was gone along with the pelts Ensi had prepared, but to the twins’ amazement, his curvy kantele was still there. And their mother was smiling broadly, even before she had a chance to see the fine mushrooms they’d brought back.

“Äiti, what is that thing called,” Juha asked his mother.

The smile dimmed only a little as she replied, “It’s called something like ‘Ukko’s löyly’, he told me. It’s from the old days before the Rash.”

“Is it _meant_ to hold water?” Jukka picked it up and examined it. “It won’t hold very much, and the wood is too thin.” Their mother laughed, and compounding their shock, both boys were startled to see her teeth had taken on an odd dark greenish tinge. They exclaimed, the odd instrument / löyly bucket momentarily forgotten.

“Äiti! Äiti! What’s the matter with your teeth?”

“Eh?” She brought her fingers to her teeth as she got up to peer into the old pockmarked mirror. She grimaced momentarily, then shrugged. “Worth it,” was all she said as she returned to the table and fished out a tiny sack from among the rye flour sacks and other provisions she’d gotten from the trader.

She carefully stuck her long fingers into the sack and brought out three small black diamonds. She showed them to the boys before carefully placing one in each twin’s hand, popping the third into her own mouth. Jukka smelled his carefully and slowly touched it with the very tip of his tongue, but Juha emulated his mother and popped his whole into his mouth. He just as quickly spat it out again as his mouth exploded with a burning rank explosion. His mother shrieked and retrieved the spat diamond, and hurried to the sink to carefully wash it off. Jukka grimaced and solemnly handed his diamond back to their mother before wiping his sticky palm on his shirt.

When they asked what it was, she replied that they were called salmiakki, and had been very popular when she was young. “You can’t get it much anymore. This is the first time I’ve had any in years. He wouldn’t tell me where he got it from.”

“I don’t want to go there,” Jukka said, sticking out his tongue with distaste.

“Did it kill people, like the Rash?” Juha asked, aping Jukka’s expression. He poured himself a glass of water to try to get rid of the foul aftertaste. Jukka laughed, but their mother frowned.

“You have no sisu,” she snorted, then sighed as she put the tiny sack away in a tin for safekeeping.

Jukka had picked up the Ukko’s löyly instrument again and was running his fingers over the strings. “It sort of sounds like water, maybe that’s why it’s like löyly,” he said. “Do you know the song he was singing?” He shot Juha a sudden panicked look, remembering that they weren’t supposed to have heard the trader singing.

Their mother smiled slightly but didn’t let on that she’d heard the boys as clearly as if they’d stomped the whole time. She hadn’t been a scout for that long without a keen ear for forest noises. She pretended she hadn’t seen Jukka’s panicked expression. “No, it was an old song, in English,” she explained dreamily, “everybody in Finland used to learn English in school. Auntie Tuuli still knows how. Probably. I think your Uncle Veeti knew it too, or at least some.” She shook her head. “No need now.”

She popped Juha’s washed salmiakki into her mouth and let the sensation wash over her, as Jukka put the Ukko’s löyly up to his chest like he saw the trader do, and suddenly realised he didn’t know what to do with his left hand. He kept his small fingers splayed away from the strings and strummed up and down with his right hand. In a pretty good approximation of the trader’s tune, he sang,

“I don’t  
know English,  
Don’t know English,  
And I’ll never learn.  
But Ukko,  
Loves his löyly,  
In saauuuu-naaaa.” As Juha clapped for his brother’s clever improvisation, Jukka took a mock bow.

The gaiety of the moment passed quickly, like a mayfly hatch. Ensi clapped her hands together and sent the boys off on their next chore, but a small smile lingered on her face as she savoured the memory of her boys’ play.

**Author's Note:**

> Have you guessed that the instrument in question is a _ukelele?_  
>  I reckon Ensi enjoys salmiakki, the super-salty licorice that really isn't a lolly. I reckon a reasonable facsimile could be made in post-Rash Finland fairly well, with birch sap and fennel, although I admit I don't know where they'd get the ammonia chloride from.  
> Also, the term 'löyly' is the Finnish word for the water you ladle onto the rocks in sauna, to give a delightful steam.
> 
> Everybody sing now, "Tiptoe, through the tulips..."


End file.
